Revealed: The best and worst places in the world to die...
The Quality of Death Index ranks the quality of palliative care in 80 countries. In its second report, the US ranks 9, Hong Kong and China at 22 and 71 respectively
No one likes to think about the end, even if everyone knows it’s coming. We prefer to prepare for more joyful milestones: birthdays and marriages, graduations and employment. These all factor into our measures of well-being – our quality of life.
We’re repeatedly told to plan for retirement, yet we rarely talk about what will happen at the end of that slow sunset. As a result, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit, we neglect to think about “dying better”.
In its second Quality of Death Index, The Economist ranks the quality of palliative care in 80 countries. As it did in 2010, the United Kingdom comes out on top. The US ranks 9, Hong Kong and China at 22 and 71 respectively.
The report distinguishes between end-of-life care and palliative care, which is defined by the World Health Organisation as limited not only to care in the final stages of a terminal illness, but also includes early assessments, psychological attention and support systems.
Commissioned by the Lien Foundation, a Singaporean philanthropic organisation, the index looks at indicators across five categories: palliative and health-care environment, human resources, affordability of care, quality of care and community engagement.